For those highly mistaken people who think the liberals are the ones who bring gentleness and compassion and reasonableness to the political debate, we always have the rebuttal. It’s called the Daily Kos. This Thursday "diary" recently made it to the top of the Kosmonauts’ recommended list, despite the fact that the writer needs his keyboard washed out with soap:
F*** you Dick Cheney! F*** your pompous condecension. F*** your straw men! F*** your mischaracterizations! F*** your sniveling attempts to keep you and your buddies asses out of federal (somewhat offensive movie quote removed, happy now?) prison! F*** your presumption that we are a bunch of cowering idiots looking for daddy to protect us from the big bad terrorists. Just F*** YOU!...
That’s just the beginning. There’s 23 F-bombs in all from the author, code named "XneeOCon." (I wouldn’t want my real name attached to this foam-flecked fit, either.) Below it is a poll asking if Cheney is an a-hole a f-ing a-hole, or pie. The "FA" option is winning as of Sunday morning, with more than 3,000 votes (and 94 percent of the total.)
In case one believes that this kind of radicalism is rare, here are some other recent Kos droppings to step around:
Let's put this straight right off the bat: favoring the use of torture is not a political position, it's a mental illness. Any further discussion of torture should be unnecessary. However... our national media seems to be enthusiastically pimping depravity as a governing principle... – "Devilstower"
I think about the hate-filled voices in my own country, that seem to be multiplying rapidly since a dark-skinned man had the temerity to get elected president. These voices have always been here, yet something has changed. Openly calling for the overthrow of government is shrugged off. A Governor who talks of secession is treated as if this were not an insane thing to say. "Jokes" about killing liberals have become standard filler on the far right, like Ann Coulter’s allegedly humorous comment about blowing up the New York Times building, or Bill O’Reilly’s babbling about destroying San Francisco. Glenn Beck appears to be serious while ranting about FEMA camps and claiming "They are coming for you."
I have heard it suggested that such words should be ignored, that our attention only inflates their importance. And I understand the argument, that some (cough Coulter cough) are only in it for the attention. But when words become weapons, silence is not enough. – "Tara the Antisocial Social Worker," in a Hindu-goddess-influenced rant, comparing right-wing talkers to the genocide in Rwanda.
What I want to argue is that the H1N1 Swine Flu and Single-Payer have about as much to do with each other as Osama bin Laden and the Pentagon. The differences are that the :Pentagon exists and Single-Payer doesn't and to date it is assumed that bin Laden has killed more Americans than Swine Flu has. [Um, hasn’t he?] If Americans were honest with themselves they would acknowledge that the :Pentagon has killed more people than OBL could ever hope to kill. That it's an expensive, sacrosanct security blanket. Like Allstate's "good hands." – "Marie" trying to sell single-payer health socialism.
But this one may be the loopiest, because in between the slices of invective are recipes for nacho dip and green bean salad (I kid you not). "Makettle" teaches at a California community college, where she bitterly battled students who supported enhanced interrogation:
I discussed how the Germans agreed with the Halocaust [sic] because they were just Jews, and how white southerners agreed with lynchings because they were just "niggers." I congratulated those who embraced torture for finally finding a group they could fit in with.
Let’s hope she served nacho dip as a peace offering after class.
[Hat tip: Mo Udall Voter.]
